Legal Formalisation of Land Rights and Local Subsistence Security: Matrilineal Land Institutions in Northern Mozambique

While the legal framework in Mozambique in principle provides equal rights to land for women and men, its underlying assumptions imply that customary tenure is patrilineal, that women get access to land through their relationships with men, while men in practice own and control land. This article focuses on matrilineal land institutions in Makhuwa communities in northern Mozambique. It argues that local matrilineal institutions have provided women with transferable rights to land, while men get access to land in various ways within the matrilineal institutional framework. Based on the Land Law of 1997, the Mozambican government in 2015 launched a large-scale land tenure formalisation programme, Terra Segura (“Secure Land”), with World Bank funding. The Mozambican Land Law recognises local community rights to customary land, while Land Law Regulations define the requirements for both community and individual formalisation of such rights. Field data collected in Makhuwa communities, where individual titling was carried out in the period 2019–2023, indicate that both women and men received titles. But what is secured through these individual titles? The article discusses to what extent formalised “secure land tenure” for individuals can weaken women’s land rights and traditional rights to subsistence—provided by matrilineal land institutions over time, across generations.